Hi, I thought about more interactions with monsters in a rpg, other than talking with weapons. What will happen, if a monster is curious. It doesn't fear the character, but it is interested in it. It might approach, try to play with the character, take a look at the characters items, maybe trying to steal some food or trying to probe the character. Think about a ogre, somewhat dumb and not being afraid of such a small human. He will try to push him, even hurt him a little bit while pushing, of cause not as an attack, but being so powerful and clumpsy. What about a watchful monster, reacting more with an animal instinct than like a script. If the character approaches it feels threatened, if the character walks away from the monster while showing the monster his back, the monster sees a potenial meal and attacks. Will it work ? Or will the player just misinterprets it and will slay everything which approaches too fast. Like the ogre pushing the character, will the character, tainted by "standard" hack-and-slay rpgs, just see an attacking ogre and try to kill it ? I think a monster have to "support" the player by "telling" him what it "thinks", but how ? Sounds or voice could work, but are there other options ? Think about the impact on gamedesign. Instead of just slaying some monster to get some quest item, you could try to walk through the threat. Avoiding more aggressive monsters or trying to calm them with food. It could be dangerous if a meek monster detects a delicacy carried by the character, which it wants to have. What do you think, will it work ? -- Ashaman

IMHO it will be difficult. Due to history in gameplay and nature, I assume that most people think of an attack whenever a "monster" is approaching quickly.

To overcome this, you presumably need to make definitely clear in advance that not all foreign looking life is bad. E.g. introduce harmless environmental life (that nevertheless looks strong and terrible) that grazes through the world and flees if the avatar comes to close. Introduce foreign looking races that live in towns side-by-side with humans. Let monsters sit on a park bench in the wilderness when the avatar approaches (okay okay, that would be a bit too bold ;)) But you understand what I mean.

Another aspect is that of profit. As long as slaying life is rewarded I'm sure that the player will do so. Rewarding a player when s/he let monsters alive is difficult. So in general you have to make it not worth the trouble. That means in a first place that indiscriminate slaying must neither grant experience points nor appreciable loot.

At least there is the aspect of reputation if supported at all. Indiscriminate slaying may be punished by shifting the reputation to the bad side, but I'm not sure whether or not that the majority of players will recognize it and react accordingly in your sense. However, this would nevertheless a more or less slow process.

[Edited by - haegarr on January 15, 2010 7:02:05 AM]

I like you're idea and I think it could be implemented, as long as the game itself supports it.

If you're designing a game that uses a system where wolfs drop loot and gold when they die and players get experience points for every penguin they kill; I don’t think it will work.

On the other hand, if it costs the player time and resources to run around killing everything that approaches them. They may consider other alternatives to mindless slaughter.

(I’ve never been a big fan of the “genocide” approach that most quest style games tend to have.)

[Edited by - GninjaGnome on January 16, 2010 9:51:38 AM]

Has been done. And although it does work technically, it is nowhere near successful as a concept, if you take repeated bankrupcies as a measure of success.

Having said that, the linked-to game has done a lot of things that seem cool and revolutionary and so much better than those cookie cutter games that suck... but its success can at best be called not-so-great. Thus, it's questionable whether the vast majority of people actually wants a deep immersive game, or whether "d00d, bash da orkz" is rather what they want.

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Original post by samoth Has been done. And although it does work technically, it is nowhere near successful as a concept, if you take repeated bankrupcies as a measure of success. Having said that, the linked-to game has done a lot of things that seem cool and revolutionary and so much better than those cookie cutter games that suck... but its success can at best be called not-so-great. Thus, it's questionable whether the vast majority of people actually wants a deep immersive game, or whether "d00d, bash da orkz" is rather what they want.

It might be failing for other reasons. Like poor advertising. This is the first I've ever heard of this game.

It also probably doesn't help when nearly every page of the site is telling you "this is one of the best MMORPGs!". Good games do not need to tell you they are good. Also it could be that the game's theme/setting isn't as well liked by the masses. It has a lot of weird alien stuff to it which nobody cares about unless they were to have read some of the story or gotten introduced to the world before playing the game.

Something like Star Wars worked because it came out first as a movie that did well, and then gained a following. Something like this doesn't work as well because it just seems like people pulled stuff out of thin air and expect you to fall in love with it.

Like these opening descriptions on the main page:

BEWARE!
Beware the world of Atys, although seemingly calm and serene, is being attacked by horrific Kitins. These powerful, mutated arachnids are swarming everywhere and have only one goal: to destroy you!

BEWARE!
Beware the two great, opposed and mysterious forces: The Kami - Legendary spirits of nature and the Karavan - Techno warriors from outer space. Take part in their struggle for world domination, and, if you dare - pick a side!

Atys? Kitins? Kami and Karavan? Sounds really cheesy and with hardly any though put behind the names. It doesn't quite have the same ring as "Storm Troopers" or "Night Elves" or whatever... It's totally randomly made up words that hold no meaning to anyone so why would anyone look at the description and be like "OH WOW I WANNA PLAY AS A KARAVAN because they are techno warriors from outer space and I want to defeat Kitins because they are... mutated arachnids... and uhhh I want to explore the world of... Atys... because it ummm... I'm not sure..."

To me it just seems like the typical game that was created by someone who has a wild imagination but no idea how to attract an audience or tie things into our world to give them more meaning. Creativity is good but I don't want to play a game where I explore the world of Krumdor as a Marpukian with the power of the Balgawak who needs to save Pookaloos from the evil Zapidons. It's like playing mad libs or something.

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Original post by Ashaman73 I thought about more interactions with monsters in a rpg, other than talking with weapons. What will happen, if a monster is curious. It doesn't fear the character, but it is interested in it. It might approach, try to play with the character, take a look at the characters items, maybe trying to steal some food or trying to probe the character. Think about a ogre, somewhat dumb and not being afraid of such a small human. He will try to push him, even hurt him a little bit while pushing, of cause not as an attack, but being so powerful and clumpsy. What about a watchful monster, reacting more with an animal instinct than like a script. If the character approaches it feels threatened, if the character walks away from the monster while showing the monster his back, the monster sees a potenial meal and attacks.

A monster that's going to steal my loot? Kill it. A monster that causes me grief and trouble? Kill it. A monster that's going to attack me when I turn my back? Kill it.

Seems there's only four NPCs in video games: XP/Loot mobs, Quest givers, Venders, and Hirelings.

Extrapolating from games that have NPCs and non-aggressive mobs around, I think the tendency will simply be for players to kill them as they come close, unless there is some sort of penalty for doing so. That is, unless there is some benefit for not killing the curious monster. Your idea concerning the food, for example, might work. If you kill the monster, then the surrounding ones would attack, so you have to "deal" with the curious monster non-aggressively, assuming you can't just kill them all.

I love the idea. It's been done a little in one of my all time, you-have-to-play-this-before-you-die, favorite games: Abe's Oddysee.

Each enemy has a different behavior:

Sligs are mean and have guns. They patrol back and forth. They shoot you on sight, and work together. However, they can't see you in the shadows, they can be possessed, and they sometimes sleep.

Slogs are like ravenous dogs. They stand around scratching themselves until you get into the line of sight, then they barrel right at you no matter what. They are pretty fast, but they can't jump high, and they are dumb so they'll run into traps and off cliffs. Slogs can be commanded by Sligs to come. They can also be distracted for a time by throwing meat toward them.

Scrabs will run at you and impale you as long as you're on "their" platform, but as soon as you leave, they'll ignore you. They are just really territorial. If you can trick two Scrabs into getting onto the same platform, they'll get into a fight (during which you can walk by them), and one will die.

Paramites are interesting. They will basically run away from you. If you walk toward them, they back up. If you land near them too close, they'll attack you. If you back them into a corner, they'll attack you. If there are more than one of them around, they aren't afraid, and they'll go after you (although you can distract them with meat). They warn you though -- if you back them into a corner, they'll hiss to warn you. If you don't back up, they jump you.


It's actually more complicated than that -- like, you can possess paramites and communicate with other paramites while in that state, making them follow you or whatever.

In any case, it's a great idea, you can set it up in your game without a problem. It makes for really interesting gameplay.

This is a fantastic idea, and it reminds me of an issue I had with Bioshock. Someone decided that the splicers should act like ranting homeless people which was cool, but every Splicer does the same thing, attack you on sight, which isn't really insane at all, just aggressive. Having an enemy eyeing me and following me and not being sure what it is going to do, especially when I want to conserve my resources and not fight, would be good gameplay I think.

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Original post by AngleWyrm A monster that's going to steal my loot? Kill it. A monster that causes me grief and trouble? Kill it. A monster that's going to attack me when I turn my back? Kill it.

If you can. If this is to work, it has to not be worth your effort to kill it.

I think it would be interesting to play a game where I have to use creative tactics to avoid monsters. It would have to be driven by a pretty sophisticated AI to be convincing. And you'd definitely have to tell players one way or another, "some animals are better avoided than killed."